Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to enterprise systems and more specifically to allocation of service endpoints to servers.
Related Art
A server generally operates to process requests from user systems (and their users), and communicate corresponding output to the requesting systems. Each server may be configured to provide one or more services to user systems, where a service may be defined as a functionality specifically requested by a user. In the context of servers supporting the process flows of a healthcare system, examples of services include accepting a pharmacy order, providing an invoice, etc.
An endpoint represents a termination point to which messages may be addressed and/or from which messages may originate. In Internet Protocol (IP) environments such endpoints are typically specified by a combination of IP address, transport protocol (TCP, UDP, etc.), and corresponding port number.
Thus, a service endpoint represents such endpoint using which user systems can avail of (e.g., invoke) the corresponding service implemented in a server. A service endpoint is also associated with an interface definition, which specifies message formats for availing of the services and for the output to be expected. Multiple services may be provided at a single endpoint.
Allocation of a service endpoint to a server implies that the service requests received for that endpoint are processed by the allocated server. Such allocation may be particularly important when many service endpoints are employed and can be allocated among several servers, for reasons such as scalability and higher throughput performance.
Aspects of the present disclosure are directed to allocation of service endpoints to servers, where many servers may be employed to process service requests received on many of the service endpoints.
In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the corresponding reference number.